Total Compensation and Performance
Job architecture, salary bands, internal equity and variable incentives tied to the results the strategy actually needs.
The challenge
Compensation grows by exception: outdated bands, hard-to-defend internal inequities and incentives that reward volume instead of profitability.
Our approach
- Job evaluation and construction of the organizational leveling architecture
- Market benchmark and competitive positioning by job family
- Diagnostic of internal equity and unexplained gaps
- Redesign of the variable scheme and the metrics that trigger it
Deliverables
- Job catalog and leveling architecture
- Salary-band grid with market positioning
- Internal-equity analysis and phased correction plan
- Incentive scheme with cost and payout simulator
Reward Architecture
Pay for the result the strategy needs.
A compensation scheme is good when it's explainable: every dollar of difference between two people has a defensible reason.
Job architecture
We evaluate jobs by contribution and build levels and families that order the organization before we talk about money.
- Job evaluation by factors
- Career families and levels
- Standardized job descriptions
Market and positioning
We benchmark against the relevant market by family and define where we want to pay at the median and where above it.
- Salary benchmark by family
- Target percentile definition
- Compa-ratio analysis
Equity and consistency
We measure explained and unexplained internal gaps and prioritize corrections with cost and timeline.
- Internal-equity analysis
- Unexplained-gap regression
- Correction plan by wave
Variable pay and performance
We redesign bonus and commission to pay for profitability rather than volume, with total-cost simulation.
- Variable-scheme design
- Cost and payout-curve simulator
- WHATs and HOWs: OKRs and expected behaviors
- Performance metrics aligned to the P&L
RA·NS methodology path
Sequence of phases, with the analytical focus of each one and the decision point that closes it.
Fig. 1 · Phase flow
Pay bands and actual position
The pay scale is read against the market median (index 100). The dots show the actual average pay by level: what falls outside the band or sits at the floor is the equity work.
Fig. 3 · Band by level and compa-ratio index (market median = 100)
Reference ranges behind the framework
Index values from the NS engagement base that we use to calibrate hypotheses and targets before measuring with the client's own data.
reference salary-increase budget in recent cycles, according to global compensation surveys
NS Base · Compensation and Performanceaverage gender pay gap in developed economies: the mandatory starting point of any equity analysis
NS Base · Compensation and Performanceonly a minority of employees perceive their pay as fair, even when the salary scale is competitive
NS Base · Compensation and PerformanceFig. 4 · NS reference ranges
Deliverables map
Each deliverable is anchored to the phase where it is produced and validated with the client team.
Fig. 2 · Deliverables by phase
The figures use reference ranges and index values from the NS method, calibrated with our project base and market tracking. Each project's results are reported with the client's actual figures.
Lead partner
Santiago Noriega
Organizational capability: structure, talent, rewards and culture.
See partner profilesAI as an accelerator in this practice
Advanced analytics to calibrate pay, internal equity and variable schemes.
- Pay equity and gap analysis with regression models over payroll
- Market benchmark enriched with automatically processed public sources
- Simulation of cost and impact of variable schemes before rollout
- Bias and outlier detection across performance cycles
We work with data governance, confidentiality controls and human validation on every deliverable: AI accelerates the analysis, it never replaces the decision.
Insights from this practice
Frameworks and criteria we use on projects, explained in detail.
Job architecture: the order that must exist before the pay scale
Without well-defined levels and job families, any pay scale becomes a collection of exceptions nobody can defend to the board.
6 min readCompensationInternal equity: separating the explained gap from the unexplained one
Two people at the same level earning different amounts isn't, by itself, a problem. The problem is being unable to explain why.
5 min readCompensationVariable incentives: stop paying for volume and start paying for margin
If the sales bonus is calculated on revenue, the team is going to sell at a discount. It's not an attitude problem: it's the design of the plan.
6 min readRewards and performanceBefore cutting headcount: recovering productivity without destroying capability
A linear cut lowers payroll for one quarter and returns the problem with interest. The right question is not how many people are surplus, but how much work is.
7 min readLet's talk about your specific case
A first conversation is enough to size the opportunity.